How To Stop Your Start Up From Turning Into Corporate Hell

Here is a problem that struggling start ups would love to have, but one that becomes a very real problem with success. How do you keep the culture of your start up alive when you have grown from three people in a shared office, to 500 scattered across offices around the world?

This was one of the issues kicked around at the GPBullhound CEO summit in the very luxurious surroundings of the W Hotel in Barcelona (about that internet bubble talk …). Gathered in the Spanish sun is a pretty good representative sample of Europe’s entrepreneurial talent.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Swedish start up Klarna which provides payment services for e-commerce sites, took the unusual step of hiring a Chief Culture Officer—the first in Sweden—to ensure that its employees share a common vision.

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